Pastel Explorations Claude Millette

It Isn't Easy Being Green. The title of this next solo show at Studio Vogue Gallery in Toronto, came from discovering from a variety of sources that green is considered a difficult color to work with, and that, in fact many people avoid green in their work. This came as a surprise for me given that being focussed on the landscape as my preferred subject, green tends to be the color I play with the most. The show represents a visual diary of my encounters with the planet, but more specifically the forest and the trees. While in the winter I hibernate and paint inside using pictures from previous forays into the wilderness, in the summer time I spend a lot of time hiking, trekking through the bushes or bird watching. I sketch, paint and capture the scenery that moves me and will later become that basis for my paintings. Many places are like magnets for me and I find myself revisiting them over and over again the same places for awhile at different times of the day and in different types of weather. Being an introvert, much of this exploration occcurs when I am alone. I enjoy walking with no fixed goal just for the fun of exploration. Nothing brings as much pleasure as discovering something new in a place I have been visiting for ages... Mostly I enjoy the experience of listening to the forest breathe, listening to it's movements. The sound of the breeze in the trees... the trembling of the leaves just before the storm, he rustle of the leaves on the trail as i walk and the cracking of dead tree limbs underfoot are all part of the experience. Unfortunately, paintings don't come with a sound file... all that is possible is to elicit the right mood so people can remember their own experiences and their own encounters with nature... It Isn't Easy Being Green also is about the experience of being a rural kind of guy living in a very urban environment that is detached from nature... It is my attempt to reconnect emotionally with the planet...